We are underway!

I think it's gonna be the little things that make us successful at this whole challenge. Recipes are good and all and having someone to tell you exactly what to eat and when would be awesome but half the time I see a generic meal plan for the week at least half of the stuff on it is inedible to me. In my opinion simple is going to be best, keep meals simple with few ingredients and things will be a lot easier to keep track of. Not being a very organized person (like myself) is going to be a super challenge to overcome so I am trying to find anything that will help keep me stay on task. Here are a few things that I have come up with that may take a little stress out of your life for the next few weeks.

Make use of Technology:
Just about everyone has a smart phone...so let it be smart. I will get busy with work and life and forget to eat my snacks or be super late eating my lunch, both of which can derail an otherwise perfect day. Use your phone's calendar app or alarm clock and set it to remind you when it's lunch time/snack time. Do the same thing with water, we need to be getting 1/2 a gallon...that's a lot of water. Have your phone ding you every hour or so and then go down a big glass and be done.

Also there are tons of apps for these phones that can be useful. I found one for the IPhone called IZone. It has tons of foods pre-loaded in it and gives you a block count for each. It works like a calculator in that you can adjust the grams of any food source and it tells you instantly what your blocks will be for that food. There are also good food log apps which allow you to track what you are eating for every meal instead of keeping up with an extra pad and pen all day. Do some searches and find out if there are any apps that may help you achieve your goals but be sure and check the user reviews as there are some crappy apps out there.

Perfect Hydration:
Most of the Juice jugs like apple juice that you buy from the grocery store come in a 64 ounce container. Save one of them and fill it every night before you go to bed so it is cold and ready to go for the next day. Take the guess work out of measuring cups of water and keeping track of how many you've drank. Just be sure and get through that 64 ounce juice jug full of water each day and you can get your extra point.

Cook enough for two:
There aren't many times you will be cooking single serving meals. Make sure and prepare enough at one time to have the next day for a lunch meal. For that matter make a ton of something especially if it's something you like and freeze it if needed. I use one of those food saver vacuum seal machines. They aren't very expensive and you can seal up most anything in one of the bags and freeze it. When I am ready to eat it again I simply boil a big pot of water and toss the bag in the pot and boil till thawed and hot all the way through. The food is surprisingly fresh this way as it doesn't get dried out like reheating things in an oven can do.

Keep it simple:
There is no need to try and rack your brain to come up with totally new and exciting things to eat every meal. Find around 5-6 things you like for each breakfast, lunch and dinner and just eat them on a rotation. I sat down and made lists of possible things to eat. I first started with a Carb/Protein/Fat list. I chose foods that I enjoy and left the ones off that I knew I really didn't like to eat, this is going to be hard enough without trying to choke down plates of broccoli (which I hate) just because I know it's healthy. Then I started 3 meals list one for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner. I pulled from my 1st lists and made complete meals that fit my block scheme. I only have around 5-7 meals for each which is fine. Lastly I took stock of what I already had at the house and constructed a very definite Menu for the entire week. This way I can make an exact grocery list of what I will need for the next few days. Be precise so you don't waste money at the grocery store. When this week is up I may repeat the same list or if there were a few meals I didn't really enjoy I will try and find substitutes for them. I have chosen Sundays for my experimental days. I will use Sunday afternoon to recipe hunt and see if I can come up with something fun to add to my meal list.

If you simply shop for healthy foods and think you can just shoot from the hip in preparing meals and tracking all this crap you are gonna LOSE! You HAVE to meal plan...plain and simple. Thinking you can come up with this stuff on the fly is the quickest way to end you up waiting in a Wendy's Drive Thru lane...I've been there and done that!

Clay Crocker